Giffgaff came through as a pioneer of the no-frills virtual mobile network, giving you a halfway house between the traditional monthly contract and PAYG services with monthly bundles. With Giffgaff there are no long-term commitments; you just pay a rolling monthly fee for a “goody bag” of minutes, texts and data, which you can cancel at any time. This gives you a lot of flexibility – you can switch goody bags if you need more data or want to save some cash – and everything is predictable and straightforward, with no chance of getting locked into a bad deal.
READ NEXT: iD Mobile review
Giffgaff review: What do you get?
While you can buy a phone through Giffgaff, the courses are rolled into your monthly tariff. Instead, you pay upfront or in separate monthly instalments, with the goody bag a separate bill. However, if you look to spread your costs on a subsidised phone it probably isn’t your best option. The price for, say, an iPhone 11 is exactly what you’d pay if you bought it directly from Apple, while interest charges on the monthly payment push the price up to £864 over 24 months. You’ll also find lower prices elsewhere for the Samsung Galaxy A51, the Samsung Galaxy S20 or the Sony Xperia 10 II, amongst a bunch of others.
Browse phones now at Giffgaff
Instead, the best reason to come to Giffgaff for its low-cost SIM-only deals. The goody bags start at £6 for 500MB with unlimited minutes and unlimited texts and go all the way up to £25 for always-on data with unlimited minutes and texts. In between, there are some other great deals, like £20 for an 80GB goody bag or £10 for a healthy 6GB. What’s more, Giffgaff does the odd one-off deal where, for instance, you might get 9GB instead of 6GB if you choose a recurring £10 deal. Giffgaff calls this a “golden goody bag”.
Browse SIM-only goody bags now at Giffgaff
There are no frills, but equally, there’s also no nonsense. You can switch goody bags month-to-month, which means that you can up your allowance for going away on a trip and downsize it for the next month when you return. And if you find you’re paying for an allowance that you don’t actually use, there is nothing to stop you moving to the next goody bag down.
READ NEXT: BT Mobile review
Giffgaff review: Coverage and connection speeds
Like Sky Mobile and Tesco Mobile, Giffgaff is a virtual network running its services on top of O2. Now, O2’s services are set for improvements over the last few years, with big investments in its 4G networks and preparations for its 5G rollout. O2’s network now covers 99% of the UK population, while you might find some spots where you won’t get a signal, you’ll be fine outside of the most rural quarters of the UK’s four nations.
What’s more, speeds have improved. The latest data from RootMetrics shows that most of O2’s 4G users can get speeds of between 10Mbits/sec and 30Mbits/sec, which is hardly slow. After all, some home broadband packages that go that fast. All the same, RootMetrics figures still put O2 last of the big four UK networks for aggregate UK median download speeds at just 13.3Mbits/sec. O2 is faster than Three in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but slower in England and Wales – and there is a sizeable speed difference between O2 and the leaders, EE and Vodafone, across most of the UK. In short, Giffgaff will be fast enough for most people but maybe not for the most demanding users.
O2’s network now supports 5G in certain areas, but EE has yet to run any 5G goody bags.
Browse SIM-only goody bags now at Giffgaff
Giffgaff review: Roaming
Like all UK networks, virtual or not, Giffgaff no longer charges you to use your calls, text and data allowance within the EU. Better still, charges don’t reach horrifying levels in many countries outside the EU. In the US and Australia, for example, calls come in at £1 a minute to make or receive, texts are 30p to send and free to receive, and data costs a very reasonable 20p per megabyte.
Given that some other networks charge £5 per megabyte, that makes Giffgaff a good option if you’re travelling outside the EU. However, you’ll need to top up your account with credit before you start making calls or using data, as Giffgaff has no facilities to pay through your monthly contract later. That’s the one downside of that 30-day rolling contract flexibility.
READ NEXT: Virgin Mobile review
Giffgaff review: Other services and spending caps
Because Giffgaff doesn’t work like a normal monthly service, there’s no option to set a spending cap as such. Instead, you can set up a plan to recur automatically, and should you run through your goody bag allowance you have the option of starting your next plan early. The alternative is to pay extra for data at a charge of 5p per MB.
If your plan isn’t set to recur, PAYG rates apply and you’ll need to top-up. This is a good option if you want to cap usage and avoid additional spending, but the downside is that, should you run out of anything, you’re effectively working with a PAYG phone.
Giffgaff review: Customer satisfaction
It seems that customers like Giffgaff’s approach. Its overall customer satisfaction score in Ofcom’s most customer service report was 95%, second only to Tesco Mobile. Only 2% of customers had any reason to complain, which is below the 3% average, while 65% of those who did complain were satisfied with how the complaint was handled – well ahead of the average of 58% and the best result for any network.
Browse SIM-only goody bags now at Giffgaff
Giffgaff review: Verdict
Take a look inside Giffgaff’s goody bags and you’ll find some of the best deals around, with none of the usual strings attached. That’s great if you value flexibility over extras or performance – particularly if you don’t be tied into an annual contract. You can flex up and down according to your needs.
So, performance isn’t exceptional, but it’s good enough for most people as demonstrated by Giffgaff’s high customer satisfaction scores. If a network’s customers are this happy, it must be doing something right.
The post Giffgaff review: Simple plans, no commitments, easy win appeared first on abangtech.
source https://abangtech.com/giffgaff-review-simple-plans-no-commitments-easy-win/
No comments:
Post a Comment